Recollected

Since 1990, the Leeds, England-based post-rock group Hood have created a blend of something modern and timeless. This six-disc set is not a full career overview, but a close focusing on their work for the Domino label.

The Leeds, England-based Hood, now some years into a relaxed hiatus following 2005's Outside Closer, are one of many bands that should have been deservedly famous. Then again, one gets a feeling in listening to their music that such a circumstance would have been contrary to everything about their art. Following in the vein of such personal musical heroes as Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, and Disco Inferno, brothers Chris and Richard Adams, plus a continually rotating group of supporting players, went from a pleasant if sometimes derivative start-- in their case including numerous short, sometimes fragmentary lo-fi tape experiments and rushed songs that were very early-1990s indie-- to a different place, a blend of something modern and timeless, suffused with an apparent serenity that in reality was never entirely at ease with the rest of the universe.

A fairly big claim, perhaps, but as the six-disc box set Recollected makes clear, the end results can be described almost in no other way. It's not a full career overview-- that would have meant a literal doubling in the size of the set, counting all their other archival efforts and earliest albums, including four CDs' worth of singles and compilation appearances alone-- but a close focusing on their work for the Domino label: four albums, a one-disc collection of singles and EPs, and an expanded reissue of their post-Outside Closer tour CD, The Hood Tapes, plus liner notes, photographs, and further details.

Due to longer song lengths and the production and touring membership of Third Eye Foundation's Matt Elliott, Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys, their full length Domino debut from 1998, was seen at the time as a contextual response to acts such as Mogwai as well as a more formal allegiance to a drone-rock scene at the other end of the country in Bristol. But it now sounds like its own genteel creation, ominous but not empty, referencing nature and time, while hints of the modern seep in through the arrangements-- consider the almost glitch-like feel of "The Light Reveals the Place", elements suddenly stopping and starting even while the overall flow continues. The dry but wounded speak-singing of the Adams siblings often felt more isolated as a result, distant cries from the titular locations.

1999's The Cycle of Days and Seasons felt like a slight return given the shorter songs, including three brief instrumentals, but the mood of cryptic contemplation remained central, skeletal arrangements with lots of space in the mix filled by equally cryptic noises and textures. Voices echo and loop, a slightly fuzzy recording of church bells recurs at points during the album, and the crackle and buried beats of "In Iron Light" implicitly suggest what else was happening in the sonic universe. That one particularly delicate, focused number, following in the vein of earlier self-referential titles, is called "Hood Is Finished" acts as both in-joke and summary: The band's approach had become so beautifully refined that it almost seemed as if anything further could be gilding the lily.

This made the shift evident on 2001's Cold House all the more appealing. From the opening full-on glitch loop of one of three cloudDEAD collaborations, "They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here", set against a still understated but more cleanly energetic performance from the group, there's a clear sense of having turned a corner. The feeling of real dislocation as aesthetic move was now fully clear, a more frenetic, in-the-moment atmosphere complementing and sometimes disrupting but never overwhelming the calm they'd already established. A song like "I Can't Find My Brittle Youth" is almost them in anthemic Wedding Present territory but in "You Show No Emotion At All" they had a perfect single showcasing their latest approach-- crisply propulsive, poised, and still reticent, guitars and keyboards as pinpoint touches and horn arrangements as a further startling glaze around a poised vocal performance about concern and distance.

If Outside Closer turns out to be the final album Hood release, then it found them building on Cold House's new balance extremely well-- if "The Negatives..." was, again, at heart, a softly sung contemplation, its arrangement was practically a soul stomper in context, with shimmering samples and melodies swirling throughout. "Winter 72" and "Closure", in turn, worked with techniques clearly inspired by dub while the stellar "The Lost You", a kaleidoscopic collage of beats and shifting arrangements, found Hood just as indebted to Timbaland as to Disco Inferno's Ian Crause or Talk Talk's Mark Hollis. Earlier glitch fascinations continued elsewhere on songs like "Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive" with further depth and detail, arrangements building steadily into dramatic conclusions.

The EPs collection mostly covers the latter half of the period, starting with 2001's "Home Is Where it Hurts", capturing the group in a transitional space and continuing through the B-sides for "The Lost You" and "The Negatives...", including fine songs such as "The World Touches Too Hard", "Over the Land, Over the Sea", and "Across the Lonely Writing Side". A key number is at the start, however-- "Useless", a 1997 vinyl A-side that many fans consider the band's best, capturing their Disco Inferno fascination for the unexpectedly anthemic with a mix of rough guitar, very Crause-like vocals, and a low-key woodwind melody. The bulk of The Hood Tapes covers rough and ready sessions following Outside Closer, less detailed but as always exploring various acoustic/electronic combinations, with further rarities including the lovely tour-only single "Winter Will Set You Back", a rare dip into full acoustic/string waters, and the split-single effort "You Shins Break My Heart", an engaging interpolation of Talk Talk's "New Grass"'s core arrangement into their own approach.

It's a bit overwhelming to take in all at once, and each disc's strengths almost come out better in isolation. But as a welcome and well-deserved overview, Recollected covers the continuing evolution of a band that, having established a strong identity over time, then proceeded to transform it to avoid repetition of what it'd already achieved. Would that more performers could be so bold, and secure enough in themselves to feel that taking a break is no bad thing.